weight, and consequently has the formula CaSO4·2H2O. By exposure to strong heat all the water may be expelled, and the substance then has the composition of anhydrite (q.v.). When the calcination, however, is conducted at such a temperature that only about 75% of the water is lost, it yields a white pulverulent substance, known as “plaster of Paris,” which may readily be caused to recombine with water, forming a hard cement. The gypsum quarries of Montmartre, in the north of Paris, were worked in Tertiary strata, rich in fossils. Gypsum is largely quarried in England for conversion into plaster of Paris, whence it is sometimes known as “plaster stone,” and since much is sent to the Staffordshire potteries for making moulds it is also termed “potter’s stone.” The chief workings are in the Keuper marls near Newark in Nottinghamshire, Fauld in Staffordshire and Chellaston in Derbyshire. It is also worked in Permian beds in Cumberland and Westmorland, and in Purbeck strata near Battle in Sussex.
Gypsum frequently occurs in association with rock-salt, having been deposited in shallow basins of salt water. Much of the calcium in sea-water exists as sulphate; and on evaporation of a drop of sea-water under the microscope this sulphate is deposited as acicular crystals of gypsum. In salt-lagoons the deposition of the gypsum is probably effected in most cases by means of micro-organisms. Waters containing sulphuretted hydrogen, on exposure to the air in the presence of limestone, may yield gypsum by the formation of sulphuric acid and its interaction with the calcium carbonate. In volcanic districts gypsum is produced by the action of sulphuric acid, resulting from the oxidation of sulphurous vapours, on lime-bearing minerals, like labradorite and augite, in the volcanic rocks: hence gypsum is common around solfataras. Again, by the oxidation of iron-pyrites and the action of the resulting sulphuric acid on limestone or on shells, gypsum may be formed; whence its origin in most clays. Gypsum is also formed in some cases by the hydration of anhydrite, the change being accompanied by an increase of volume to the extent of about 60%. Conversely gypsum may, under certain conditions, be dehydrated or reduced to anhydrite.
Some of the largest known crystals of selenite have been found in southern Utah, where they occur in huge geodes, or crystal-lined cavities, in deposits from the old salt-lakes. Fine crystals, sometimes curiously bent, occur in the Permian rocks of Friedrichroda, near Gotha, where there is a grotto called the Marienglashöhle, close to Rheinhardsbrunn. Many of the best localities for selenite are in the New Red Sandstone formation (Trias and Permian), notably the salt-mines of Hall and Hallein, near Salzburg, and of Bex in Switzerland. Excellent crystals, usually of a brownish colour arranged in groups, are often found in the brine-chambers and the launders used in salt-works. Selenite also occurs in fine crystals in the sulphur-bearing marls of Girgenti and other Sicilian localities; whilst in Britain very bold crystals are yielded by the Kimeridge clay of Shotover Hill near Oxford. Twisted crystals and rosettes of gypsum found in the Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, have been called “oulopholites” (οὖλος, “woolly”; φωλεός, “cave”).
In addition to the use of gypsum in cement-making, the mineral finds application as an agricultural agent in dressing land, and it has also been used in the manufacture of porcelain and glass. Formerly it was employed, in the form of thin cleavage-plates, for glazing windows, and seems to have been, with mica, called lapis specularis. It is still known in Germany as Marienglas and Fraueneis. Delicate cleavage-plates of gypsum are used in microscopic petrography for the determination of certain optical constants in the rock-forming minerals. (F. W. R.*)
GYROSCOPE AND GYROSTAT. These are scientific models
or instruments designed to illustrate experimentally the
dynamics of a rotating body such as the spinning-top, hoop and
bicycle, and also the precession of the equinox and the rotation of
the earth.
The gyroscope (Gr. γῦρος, ring, σκοπεῖν, to see) may be distinguished from the gyrostat (γῦρος, and στατικός, stationary) as an instrument in which the rotating wheel or disk is mounted in gimbals so that the principal axis of rotation always passes through a fixed point (fig. 1). It can be made to imitate the motion of a spinning-top of which the point is placed in a smooth agate cup as in Maxwell’s dynamical top (figs. 2, 3). (Collected Works, i. 248.) A bicycle wheel, with a prolongation of the axle placed in a cup, can also be made to serve (fig. 4).
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| Fig. 1. | Fig. 2. |
The gyrostat is an instrument designed by Lord Kelvin (Natural Philosophy, § 345) to illustrate the more complicated state of motion of a spinning body when free to wander about on a horizontal plane, like a top spun on the pavement, or a hoop or bicycle on the road. It consists essentially of a massive fly-wheel concealed in a metal casing, and its behaviour on a table, or with various modes of suspension or support, described in Thomson and Tait, Natural Philosophy, serves to illustrate the curious reversal of the ordinary laws of statical equilibrium due to the gyrostatic domination of the interior invisible fly-wheel, when rotated rapidly (fig. 5).
The toy shown in figs. 6 and 7, which can be bought for a shilling, is acting as a gyroscope in fig. 6 and a gyrostat in fig. 7.
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| Fig. 3. | Fig. 4. |
The gyroscope, as represented in figs. 2 and 3 by Maxwell’s dynamical top, is provided with screws by which the centre of gravity can be brought into coincidence with the point of support. It can then be used to illustrate Poinsot’s theory of the motion of a body under no force, the gyroscope being made kinetically unsymmetrical by a setting of the screws. The discussion of this movement is required for Jacobi’s theorems on the allied motion of a top and of a body under no force (Poinsot, Théorie nouvelle de la rotation des corps, Paris, 1857; Jacobi, Werke, ii. Note B, p. 476).
To imitate the movement of the top the centre of gravity is displaced from the point of support so as to give a preponderance. When the motion takes place in the neighbourhood of the downward vertical, the bicycle wheel can be made to serve again
